The real difficulty with the current tornado warning system

[Jeff Snyder]

Had no idea that the national average was so high. Where are you getting these statistics?
[/b]

The Nat'l stats can be found at National Weather Service – GPRA Performance Targets for FY 2007 President’s Budget...

There's also the following, but I didn't see the specific stats in there:
Harold E. Brooks. 2004: TORNADO-WARNING PERFORMANCE IN THE PAST AND FUTURE: A Perspective from Signal Detection Theory. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: Vol. 85, No. 6, pp. 837–843.
and
Bob Glahn. 2005: Tornado-Warning Performance in the Past and Future—Another Perspective. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: Vol. 86, No. 8, pp. 1135–1141.

As the first link shows, the national FAR for tornado warnings in 2005 was 77%, and the medium-term goal (through 2011) is to bring that down to 74%. The average lead time for FY2005 was 13 minutes, fwiw.

 

[rdale]

I got my numbers from IAState's experimental verification page - http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cow/

Kind of sad that the "goal" at the end of this decade is still for 3 out of 4 warnings to be false alarms...

 

[Brian Brubaker]

I live in a small Kansas town. It has been said that the official policy (which I have yet to confirm) is to only blow the sirens if all of these conditions are true:

1) Tornado is on the ground

2) It is within one mile of the city limits

3) It is bearing down on the town.

If accurate, I think this is a rediculous policy and I plan on trying to get it changed. I've heard it is like this so that the retirement home in town doesn't have to evacuate the living quarters and move everyone to safety if it ends up being a false alarm. (This may only be a rumor, but would not surprise me.)

Does anyone have an opinion on this?

 

[Kevin Myatt]

Here's an interesting story about how some tornado sirens being replaced, from KARK-TV in Little Rock. Independence County Arkansas is replacing its sirens with a volunteer group of callers to be equipped with NWR recievers.

http://www.kark.com/news/default.asp?mode=shownews&id=6149
[/b]

Here's a quote from the TV story you cite: "The county`s 24 sirens are old and unreliable and the cost to buy new ones is too much."

How can that be? Those sirens were only installed in the late 1990s when I lived in Independence County, Arkansas.

I wrote a newspaper story one time back then about the opposing siren philosophies between Independence County and its neighbor Izard County. Then, Independence was sounding its sirens county-wide for basically every severe- and tornado-warned storm. Izard left it entirely at the discretion of local town officials to decide if their particular part of the county was affected by the warning.

 

[Damon Poole]

I guess they can't afford the repair bill. What I don't get is why they rely solely on the neighbor call system. What happens if the phones get knocked out, or people don't answer the phone? Why not just buy weather radios for those who would need them most, or, better yet, put them into schools, churches, hospitals, hotels and other public places? Go figure!

 

[Kenny Drake]

When I was in 8th grade, close to Memorial Day 2000 there was a very strong derecho that moved directly through the MSP area. There was a tornado confirmed over Shoreview (N side if MSP) that was probably F0/F1 max (shingles being ripped off, downed power lines, small trees was the extent.) I don't remember exactly but I dont think any counties were Tornado warned. I know the sirens were sounded in every part of the MSP area. Indeed it was a very nice derecho, knocked out power to much of the MSP area (wind gusts approaching 90mph). This would be a great case, IMO when SVR warnings from NWS would warrant tornado siren usage because the house behind me had a huge tree fall on it. Luckily, the roof held up and they were fine and probably would have been fine if the roof collapsed because they were in the basement thanks to the sirens.

However, I remember a very extreme case when I was in 5th or 6th grade. It was late October, temps in the low 50s... with a very thick strato-cumulus deck. Me and my brother were playing catch when suddenly the tornado sirens went off. Even in 5th grade I knew enough to question it. I came inside, turned on the news and guess what the sirens were sounded for? One random civilian on the north side of town thought they saw a tornado. I dont know what day it was, or even what year... so I can't say I know the weather for that day at all besides what I saw with my eyes. However, I'm sure there were no watches because our neighbor at the time was TERRIFIED of storms and even a flash flood watch (there is no way, even if it rained 3ft that our neighberhood would flood given elevation) would alarm her and she'd be calling every half hour making sure my mom was there in case she had to come over.

My opinion is, sirens should be sounded when there is an imminent threat warned by credible sources. This includes air raids (seems way ancient, I know), and weather, and anything else... for instance in Washington they would sound the sirens if a tsunami was imminent. I really think there need to be national guidelines to follow, but I think it should be up to the local authorities (and meteorologists, or other experts in whatever field of study concerns the danger) to decide on siren/no siren based on the guidelines. The worst case scenario is this: sirens get used so often that the general public begins to ignore them. We all know what can happen from there on out.

 

[Robbie Cox]

Here's an interesting story about how some tornado sirens being replaced, from KARK-TV in Little Rock. Independence County Arkansas is replacing its sirens with a volunteer group of callers to be equipped with NWR recievers.

http://www.kark.com/news/default.asp?mode=shownews&id=6149
[/b]

Talking about about stepping back thirty years.:blink: Reminds me of when the fireman had a red light on their telephones so when a call went out it would light up and ring the phones. why don't they incorp. the 911 system with a call back system until they get new sirens ?

worst case i much rather seen see firetrucks, and squads using loud horns so the one that are on the internet or just plain talking on the phone would still have an idea on want's going on.

"Independence County has secured a 37-thousand dollar federal grant which will be used to buy about seven hundred weather radios."

Talking about government pork spending

 

[Scott Olson]

Well I guess it's a better option than just letting the sirens go quiet. I imagine Independence County has some rural parts and it's possible maintaning the siren system might be beyond the reach of their financial situation. If anything it seems like a rather cheap solution as opposed to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring siren system up-to-par. Definately not a very effective way of warning people though.

 

[Robbie Cox]

More info here
http://www.guardonline.com/?module=display...083&format=html

 

[Jeff Snyder]

More info here
http://www.guardonline.com/?module=display...083&format=html
[/b]

I assume a reverse-911 system is more expensive? I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of community warning coming from private citizens calling other citizens. "Oops, sorry it took so long to call you about the tornado warning, but I was in the bathroom.... See, I had this chili for dinner..." Or "I was at my brother's house this weekend, so I missed out..." It also seems like a considerably more lengthy (time-wise) process.

 

[Nick Smith]

The Hamilton County sirens were again activated at 9:32 PM Friday evening, for a severe thunderstorm warning during a tornado watch. The warning polygon covered roughly the northern two thirds of Dearborn County, IN and the western one third of Hamilton County. Thus far, it appears that warning did not verify. Hail was reported, but was below severe criteria.

 

[Eric Friedebach]

I assume a reverse-911 system is more expensive? I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of community warning coming from private citizens calling other citizens. "[/b]

Here's a short AP news story about what is being considered in Indiana.

I was curious just how this system was supposed to work and asked around in some telecom circles, but did not hear much back.

 

[rdale]

You record a message and draw an area on the map that needs to be notified, and the computer calls them and plays the message.

 

[Chris Geelhart]

I live in a small Kansas town. It has been said that the official policy (which I have yet to confirm) is to only blow the sirens if all of these conditions are true:

1) Tornado is on the ground

2) It is within one mile of the city limits

3) It is bearing down on the town.
[/b]

My grandparents used to live in a small South Dakota town, whose siren policy (and I think this is still true) was:

Sirens sound for all tornado warnings, but:
1) Steady tone if the town was not in the direct path of the tornado, and
2) Warble (i.e. "attack-warning") tone if the town was in the direct path.
Short "all-clear" tones when the warning expired.

Not to mention the daily noon and 1 pm sirens (not sure if they still do that) to signal the start and end of lunchtime.

Chris G.

 

[Kevin Myatt]

Well I guess it's a better option than just letting the sirens go quiet. I imagine Independence County has some rural parts and it's possible maintaning the siren system might be beyond the reach of their financial situation. If anything it seems like a rather cheap solution as opposed to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring siren system up-to-par. Definately not a very effective way of warning people though.
[/b]

Independence County is almost nothing but rural parts ... 10,000-population Batesville is the biggest town ... a large county in areal size by Arkansas standards, half in the Ozarks, half in the flatlands ... I still can't imagine being able to call everybody in the county in a timely manner, especially if the warning goes off for a tornado already on the ground in the county ... calling just 25 people could take 5 minutes or more, especially if you allow for figuring out what to do with wrong numbers, answering machines, no-answers, etc ...